No Oompa Loompas were present, but the "Golden Ticket Day" preview at the new Glazer Children's Museum on Sunday was a hit just the same.
“It’s so much awesome,” said 5-year-old Luciano Vivino while watching his sister Isabella, 7, perform in the museum’s Twinkle Stars Theatre. The iridescently lit space, complete with costumes and changeable backdrops, is just one attraction among the dozen themed galleries and 170 interactive exhibits in the new downtown Tampa museum, a 55,000-square-foot, candy-colored wonderland for kids 10 and under. The museum opens to the public on Saturday; the Vivinos were among 60 families who won "golden tickets" to Sunday's preview via department store and media promotions. (See Chip Weiner's photos of the opening day celebration.)
Missy Vivino said she liked the fact that the exhibits appealed both to her daughter's creative side, and to her more building-oriented son. That balance between imaginative play and interactive gadgetry is on view throughout the museum, from a pretend fire truck with suits and hoses to clever video exhibits like “MeTube” and an airplane with a pilot screen showing aerial views of Tampa Bay. On Sunday, kids scuttled like rodents in a maze through a 35-foot-tall climbing structure called Water’s Journey. The labyrinth of drop-shaped platforms, safely surrounded by coated mesh wiring, re-creates the journey of a water droplet from the sky to aquifer.
Museum spokespersons credit president/CEO Al Najjar for being "the brains" behind many of the hands-on, high-tech installations. The expert design and kid-sized aesthetic appeal almost melt away any grown-up skepticism that creeps in as you marvel at the ambitious facility that Tampa’s elite helped bankroll, and may or may not be able to help sustain.
This article appears in Sep 16-22, 2010.